Abel to Yzerman

To quote ediliac, one of the “soft-euro” of the “19”, Iggy and the Stooges are coming to play tonight; and they are as desperate for points as DET. CGY enter the tilt 9th in the W.C., one meager point behind DET. Thankfully, the Flame haven’t been lighting the world on fire, going 5-4-1 in their last 10. But they are riding a 2 game winning streak, and Captain Canada had a hat trick against MIN on Sunday.

RWBill pointed out that since the Return of the Mule, DET are 4-1-2, and are sporting a 3.57 G/G in that span (as opposed to their season average of 2.63). The Wings are winners of 2 in a row, and 4 of the last 5. It remains to be seen whether their implosion against VAN is nothing more than an aberration, or are the Wings ready to be as dominant as they were during their obscene 5 goal, 2nd period in CHI?

Uncle Mike is riding Jimmah again tonight, Good. E-52 will try to play the blueline, Bad. The Wings haven’t managed to win three consecutive in nearly three months, Ugly.

Only one game last night affecting the Peloton of suck. DAL was at WSH last night, trying to snap a 3 game losing streak. After spotting WHS a 2 goal lead, they won in the shootout, moving into the 10 spot. Turco was impressive. Fuching Caps.

MISC: Pavel Datsyuk has three goals and five assists during a five-game point streak for the Red Wings. Jarome Iginla has not scored a goal in his last 19 games against the Detroit Red Wings. The teams split their first two meetings, and have not faced each other since November. Miikka Kiprusoff, 4-2-0 with a 2.31 goals-against average in his last six starts against Detroit, is expected to be back in net Tuesday.

The Flames made several changes prior to and at the trading deadline. They added forwards Niklas Hagman, Matt Stajan and Jamal Mayers from Toronto and Christopher Higgins and Ales Kotalik from the New York Rangers. They also picked up defensemen Steve Staios from Edmonton and Ian White from Toronto and backup goaltender Vesa Toskala from the Maple Leafs. . . .

TPH says one of the reasons DET is looking better - - they are taking the puck to the net: “I think we’ve been playing more straight ahead, going hard to the net, getting the puck to the net and creating scoring chances that way instead of ending up in the corners too much,’’

Buoyed by a victorious rally against one of the NHL’s top teams, the Red Wings now need to do what they haven’t done in three months: Win a third straight game. . . .

“It’s way easier to be more confident when you’ve got more good players,” Babcock said. “It’s pretty straightforward. When your power play goes on the ice, it’s dangerous. There are people that are killing momentum. I thought we got good balance last night in our scoring. ... The big thing is, we’ve got to keep building on what we’ve got going here. We’ve won four or five. We’ve got to continue to do that. If you play well over a stretch of time, you earn the right to feel good about yourself.”

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The Calgary Herald has the expected line-up:

And their writer, Scott Cruickshank, has a sense of humor, taking a shot at the CGY scoring woes:

After beating the powerhouse (and home-ice) Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday afternoon, Detroit coach Mike Babcock said: “The good teams in the league are hoping that we don’t get into the seventh and eighth spot.” . . . With their 10-goal explosion, the Flames have surged to 27th overall in scoring. The Wings are 18th . . . Both teams are in the top-10 defensively . . . Detroit, averaging only 9.3 minutes per night, is the second least penalized squad in the league. Calgary, 15.2, is sixth most. The daintiest team? Nashville at 9.2. The roughest? Philadelphia at 17.2. In terms of major penalties, the Wings have taken the least (18), the Flames the most (69) . . .

About Abel to Yzerman

Welcome to Abel to Yzerman, a Red Wing blog since 1977. No other site on the internet has better-researched, fact-laden and better prepared discussions than A2Y. Re-phrase: we do little research, find facts and stats highly overrated and claim little to no preparation. There are 19 readers of A2Y. No more, no less. All of them, except maybe one, are juvenile in nature. Reminding them of that in the comment section will only encourage them to prove that. Your suggestions and critiques are welcome: wphoulihan@gmail.com